Read Seven Archangels: Annihilation for Free Online Page B

burning.
    Gabriel raised his hands again and clanked against the chain ends, but he didn't seem to notice he was still anchored to the wall. "What makes the string? What material makes the soul itself? Is the string what gives it awareness and animation?" he blurted, even as Mephistopheles was urging, "Tell me how it feels—tell me everything. I'll record it for study, and I'll even share the results with your choir-mates."
    Mephistopheles lunged closer and grabbed him by the forearms. "Gabriel, if it has to happen, the least you can do is make sure it's properly documented."
    With a bang, the chains tightened again, slamming Gabriel into the wall. Gasping, he closed his eyes.
    "Shall we begin?" said Lucifer.
    Help me, Gabriel prayed, and at the same time he instinctively reached for Raphael's heart. Satan's here.
    Gabriel wriggled his wrists around so they fit better in the cuffs, and he tried to look at Lucifer without Lucifer meeting his eyes in return. The leader of the rebel angels, Lucifer seemed to move as if every gesture were calculated and captured for study; he had a Seraph's height and chiseled features. Gabriel watched as Lucifer cleared the room of the excess contents: a chair; the paper cup with a coffee logo on it. Even tucked at his back, his twelve wings all but filled the room, and his platinum hair lifted Gabriel's light so naturally that it seemed to glow of its own accord.
    Mephistopheles said, "I'll summon the others," and momentarily Beelzebub and Camael stood in the room.
    Gabriel turned away from Camael, who glared at him with Remiel's wild eyes but an abrasive edge that scoured the air around him.
    "Fasten him." Mephistopheles checked the chains for tension, and abruptly Gabriel felt another Guard form over his chest, crushing him into the rock. His glow wavered, or perhaps it was his vision blackening.
    "Back off," Mephistopheles said. "He has to remain conscious. We discussed this."
    The pressure eased. Gabriel tried to sneak in a breath, praying as fervently as his logic-based Cherub soul could manage.
    Lucifer straightened his sleeves. "Any last requests?"
    "Once a year," Gabriel panted, "remind God that I loved him."
    Lucifer paused. "I don't think so."
    Gabriel chilled as icy fingers probed his soul.
    Lucifer caught the lifeline about his heart, tugged it, and lifted it free of its fastenings.
    "God!" Gabriel screamed, his spine trying to arch against his restraints, his wings snapping out, but with him unable to move because he was so tightly bound to the rock.
    With Camael kneeling like a makeshift altar, Lucifer channeled all his power through the twin and fine-tuned Camael's larger strokes while Mephistopheles and Beelzebub together wove a perfect living Guard with their bonded souls.
    Absolutely immobilized, Gabriel foundered as he tried to retain whatever those beads were that composed himself. The last thing he saw was the intensity of Camael's eyes—horrified and helpless and grim. Then Gabriel's glow winked out, plunging the chamber into blackness.
    "They're attacking," Mephistopheles and Beelzebub said simultaneously. "Michael's hurling himself at the Guard."
    All around the chamber, rock shivered like a space shuttle at T-minus-one.
    "Stay strong," Lucifer said. "He's mine."
    Gabriel felt his personality slipping apart. There were tears on his face, but the drama enfolded him. Gritting his teeth, he chanted in his mind, God is strong, God is strong, God is strong.
    Energy from Raphael and Israfel empowered him from within. He soaked it into his heart as quickly as he could to fortify what Lucifer had not yet breached.
    The room sparkled now even though it was the lab area: the Guard flickering, the eerie energy of Lucifer coursing through Camael and out his eyes, Gabriel's soul leaking light it never had before. Michael's sigil glowed white-hot with its owner outside the room.
    The outer Guard shattered, but the stronger one remained.
    Camael missed a notch, and Lucifer cuffed him,